


your delivery has been delayed

by dinnfameron



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Missing Scene, POV Patrick Brewer, Patrick Brewer loves David Rose, Post-Episode: s05e11 Meet the Parents, Pre-Episode: s05e13 The Hike, Season/Series 05, don't @ me about the timeline, just proposal things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinnfameron/pseuds/dinnfameron
Summary: “Patrick, please,” David cuts him off, voice soft. “I know you, and I know you’re trying to act like everything’s fine because it’s our business anniversary, and you are an impossibly sweet and considerate human being. But also, like, I’m pretty sure you’re upset about something? And I’m guessing that maybe you had some sort of elaborate romantic gesture planned, because of the aforementioned sweet and considerate human being thing, and it didn’t work out. Am I close?”I love you a stupid amount,Patrick thinks.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 72
Kudos: 295





	your delivery has been delayed

**Author's Note:**

> The timing of Patrick's proposal has always bothered me. Like, the day before opening night of Cabaret? A few days before David's birthday?? Just, why??
> 
> So here's maybe why. 
> 
> (Also I have no idea if the timeline even makes sense here. It's all Jeremy Bearimy anyway. If it feels off just pretend it's an au. )

Patrick kisses his boyfriend awake slow and lazy. It takes longer than it probably should for David to finally open his eyes, but, given the occasion, Patrick indulges him.

“Happy anniversary, David,” he whispers into the warm space where David’s neck meets his shoulder.

“Mmm, thank you,” David purrs. “Happy anniversary to you.”

It’s been two years to the day since they opened Rose Apothecary, and if Patrick thinks too long about how much his life has changed since that day, then he’s going to lose it. So he doesn’t think about it, just snuggles in closer to David, dropping another kiss to his shoulder, and sighs contentedly.

Patrick isn’t sure David’s ever actually going to get out of bed, but eventually he shuffles off to the bathroom to begin his ‘morning ablutions,’ and Patrick heads into the kitchen to start David’s coffee and the water for his tea, using the brief moment alone to check his email. He curses under his breath when he spots a certain subject line:

**Your delivery has been delayed**

The rings. The custom gold rings he’d ordered weeks ago. The rings that he was supposed to have safely in his possession days ago. Had been delayed. Again. Patrick scans the email for the new expected date of arrival. The transit company now said he would receive his order in five days.

He blows out a long, frustrated breath. Dammit. He’d been holding out hope that they might arrive today, that he might still have them in time for his plan tonight, but that was out of the question now.

Five more days. In the grand scheme, he knew it didn’t really matter. Five days was nothing. David wasn’t going anywhere. Patrick was just going to have to wait a little bit longer to ask him the most important question of their lives. He would just have to wait five more days. It was fine.

Except. The anniversary of the store opening wasn’t in five days. That was today. 

Patrick sighs again, scrubbing a hand through his hair while he tried to think. Before he came to Schitt’s Creek, his plans had always come together just as he’d seen them in his head. There were blips, sure, tiny ones. But back then when made a plan, and he stuck to it, everything just sort of fell into place. That was his life. Up until it wasn’t.

Since walking out on his old life and coming to Schitt’s Creek. Since meeting David? Nothing ever went how Patrick planned it.

The job he’d taken at Ray’s that was supposed to be an easy, temporary thing while he figured himself out in a low stakes environment had quickly turned into Patrick launching a new business with a near-stranger who made every single moment of his life feel decidedly high stakes.

Patrick’s first date with David had crashed and burned when Stevie showed up, then risen from the ashes to become the best and (hopefully) last first date of his life.

Patrick’s most recent birthday was supposed to be a quiet dinner with David and had instead ended up with Patrick coming out to his parents during his own surprise birthday party, surrounded by his new family and half the town.

Patrick doesn’t know what he expected, really. The moment he decided he was going to propose to David, he should’ve known something would go sideways. Nothing ever went how he planned it when it came to his life now. Instead, it somehow managed to turn out even better.

And that was always, always, because of David.

Patrick slips his phone in the pocket of his pajama pants and finishes putting David’s coffee together. It’ll be fine, he tells himself. The rings will come when they come, and he’ll ask David then. It’ll be good.

A while later, they’re getting ready to walk out the door to go open the store. Patrick is rinsing out his mug at the sink when David drops a gift bag on the counter.

“What’s this?”

“Open it.” David touches the tip of his tongue to his top lip in an exaggerated excited expression he either got from or passed on to Alexis.

“You didn’t have to get me something, David.”

“Oh, so we’re not marking this very momentous occasion, then? We’re going to pretend that it’s not a big deal that we’ve managed to keep the store open and thriving for multiple years now?” David’s hands are swooping every which way, and he feints like he’s going to snatch Patrick’s present away. “Okay, I guess I’ll just go burn whatever this is, then.”

“Alright,” Patrick laughs, saving the gift bag from David’s reach and shoving his hand inside. He pulls back the tissue paper surrounding his gift. David leans in and adds, “When we get back home tonight, I’ll give you your real gift,” he throws in a little shoulder shimmy, “this is just a little something.”

Patrick laughs again and pulls a slender envelope from the bag. He flicks the flap open and peers inside.

“Oh my god, David. Jays tickets?”

David hums, a pleased smile tucked into the corner of his face. “There are two tickets there, but I want to express that I _will not_ be disappointed if you want to ask someone else. Like your dad. Or my dad. Or anyone’s dad, really.”

“Oh, but David. This is a gift for the anniversary of _our_ store. I really feel like we should probably both use them.”

“That’s unnecessarily generous of you.”

“I am an unnecessarily generous person,” Patrick says, tossing the bag on the counter and grabbing David around the middle to haul him in. 

“I’ve always said that about you,” David murmurs as Patrick leans in for a kiss.

They only open the store seven minutes later than the posted opening time. A win in Patrick’s book, considering.

++++

“What is this?”

“This is the Café Tropical, David. We’ve been here several times.”

“I mean, where is everyone?” David casts a confused glance around the empty café. “Was there another salmonella outbreak?”

“Okay, that never actually happened,” Twyla says testily, coming to meet them at the door. “You were the one who made up that rumor.”

She leads them to the booth near the back where they had their first date. Patrick supposes, being the only eat-in dining joint in town, every booth at the café must bear significant meaning to a lot of people. He imagines that important conversations, celebrations, and milestones have happened countless times in each one. But he likes to think of this booth as theirs, anyway.

“You gentlemen will be dining alone tonight,” Twyla informs David. She throws Patrick a wink, “as requested.”

She pours two glasses of the café’s finest zhampagne, runs through the menu Patrick had pre-selected for the evening, and leaves them in peace with another wink and a broad smile. 

“You rented out the café for our store anniversary dinner?” David says lowly, his face an absolutely adorable mix of pleased confusion and mild judgment. “Seems a bit excessive.”

Patrick thinks back to his birthday party just a few weeks ago. He glances over to the spot where they’d slow danced under the lights and he’d realized, not for the first time, that David always made everything okay.

 _This is where I decided I was going to ask you to marry me, so it felt like the right place to propose_ , Patrick doesn’t say. It feels a little silly now, of course, having rented out the café for a proposal that wasn’t going to happen. Patrick’s a little embarrassed about it, but what was he supposed to do? _Not_ take David out to dinner?

“I just wanted it to feel special,” he says instead. “And I wasn’t aware that you minded excess? I’ll have to cancel the hot air balloon ride.”

“Oh my god, you didn’t—” David squints at him. The longer they’re together, the harder it is for Patrick to get one over on him. Of course, the added challenge only makes it more fun. “You’re joking,” David says.

“Am I?” He is. But David will have to wait to know for sure.

Twyla brings out their appetizer then, and David, nothing if not predictable, is preoccupied for a while. Patrick has a hard time making conversation during dinner, too distracted by his own disappointment at his plans falling through. He’s also more frustrated than he realized that he can’t talk about it with the one person who can always make him laugh and help him get a little perspective. He tries to show interest in everything David’s saying, though. He doesn’t want to ruin the evening just because he’s in a mood. 

“Okay, not that I’m complaining,” David starts in after sufficiently gorging himself on his half of the food and a good portion of Patrick’s half, “because you know that I’m easy either way, and I’m not a complainer...”

Patrick snorts. “Not sure where to even begin with that one, David.”

“But,” David drags out the word, “is there something I’m missing here?”

“Like what?”

David gestures broadly around the restaurant. “You rented out the café. I’m pretty sure you were kidding about the hot air balloon ride, but you definitely seem distracted about something. You haven’t given me a present yet, nor did you bring one with you. You’ve also been acting weird all day, so this just feels…off.”

“I haven’t been acting—”

“Patrick, please,” David cuts him off, voice soft. “I know you, and I know you’re trying to act like everything’s fine because it’s our business anniversary and you are an impossibly sweet and considerate human being. But also, like, I’m pretty sure you’re upset about something? And I’m guessing that maybe you had some sort of elaborate romantic gesture planned, because of the aforementioned sweet and considerate human being thing, and it didn’t work out. Am I close?”

 _I love you a stupid amount,_ Patrick thinks. He forgets, sometimes. Gets so busy fixating on David and paying attention to every little thing about him and pouring all his energy into making sure that David’s okay and the store is okay and they’re okay that sometimes he forgets that David’s doing the same thing for him. He gives himself two seconds to bask in the warm glow of love for David that swells in his chest.

“Yes,” he says after a moment, sighing and finally letting his shoulders sag, releasing the tension he didn’t realize he’d been holding all day. “You’re pretty close.”

David just looks at him, giving him the space he needs to arrange his words.

“I, uh, ordered you a present, but it didn’t come in time.”

“Oh,” David says brightly. “That’s all? Oh my god, Patrick, I don’t need a present to enjoy being with you.” He reaches across the table and grips Patrick’s hand with his own. 

“I know you don’t. But I wanted to… today was supposed to be special.”

“It was,” David says, certain. “It _is._ It always is, with you.”

The look on David’s face is his rare sincere face. Patrick’s only seen it a handful of times, but he loves it. Loves that he’s one of maybe five people on the planet who gets to be on the receiving end of it.

“What you seem to be forgetting,” David says thoughtfully, “is that we wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. Like, you just came out of nowhere and, like, adopted the store as your own, and you helped make it what it is, and,” David stops, clears his throat. His eyes are shining. “And then you decided to go ahead and love me, too, and that’s… so. I don’t need some big gift from you.”

The corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks in a smile. He holds David’s gaze for a long time, only looking away when his own eyes become too full of tears and they have to come spilling out onto his cheeks. He wipes them away with a sheepish laugh. He can’t wait to marry this kind, beautiful man.

“Thank you, David,” he says finally.

The intensity of the moment broken, David leans back into his side of the booth, a playful smile breaking out on his face. “What I do need from you is dessert, though? So I hope you had Twyla make me a baked good or some type of sweet treat.”

“There’s a ganache torte from that place in Elm Glen waiting for us back at the apartment.”

“Oh my god, then why did you think you had to get me anything else?” David exclaims. “That torte is literally the only thing I need.”

Dinner wraps up pretty quickly after that, David sufficiently motivated now that he knows there’s cake waiting for him at home. He winds his arm around Patrick’s on the walk back to Patrick’s building.

“Okay, I know I said that torte was the only thing I needed, but I might need, like, one other thing from you tonight,” he purrs into Patrick’s ear. 

“I think that can be arranged,” Patrick says, voice even like he’s discussing contract terms or negotiating which of them will do the sweeping up. “Which one would you like first, though? The torte or the other thing?”

“Ugh, don’t make me choose! Is both an option?”

Patrick considers it. “We could probably make that work. I did have some plans, though, for us. For tonight.”

“I’m shocked,” David declares, a scandalized hand splaying across his chest. “Patrick Brewer. Having plans? I can’t believe.”

++++

The next morning is back to business as usual for the most part. Patrick is waiting for David’s coffee to brew and scrolling through his email account. No delivery delays reported today, thankfully. Barring any other emergencies, he should have the rings in a few days.

“David, I want to take you on a hike this weekend,” he announces.

“Ew. What?” David’s horrified voice carries over from the bathroom where he’s putting the finishing touches on his hair. He stomps into the kitchen to gape at Patrick like he’s got three heads. “What in the two years we’ve known each other have I ever done that’s led you to believe that any part of me would want to _go on a hike_ with you?”

Patrick circles his boyfriend’s waist with his arms, pulling him closer and thinking fast. He uses the voice that he’s learned will get David to agree to almost anything. “A picnic, then. Come on, David. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Oh, okay. A picnic sounds nice.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [dinnfameron](https://dinnfameron.tumblr.com) on tumblr come say hiiii.


End file.
